I really liked the imagery and setting of Rama's journey through the desert and his battle with Thataka. However, I felt like the actual story of Thataka came more as an interruption. I want to explore shortening the story, and having it come naturally as a dialogue between Rama, Lakshmana, and Viswamithra. In the story, first the group arrives at a seclusion where many saints come and pray to Shiva because Shiva himself had meditated there. It is full of incense. They spend the night after being welcomed by many hermits (who I assume are the saints praying?) The next day they arrive at the desert. It is described as the harshest desert known to man, with vast sand and fissures, and no vegetation. Many bones remained scattered and bleached by the sun, including the skeletons of great snakes who could eat elephants whole. Heat waves were said to reach the sky. Viswamithra put some magic (Mantras, called Bala and Adi-Bala) which would allow himself and the boys to feel not as if they're walking through the desert, but through a pleasant stream with a light summer breeze on their faces. Rama asks why the desert is so terrible, and Viswamithra tells him that Thataka made it so. She was the daughter of Suketha, who was a yaksha ("a demigod of great valor, might, and purity"). Thataka married Sunda, a chief of the region (which was lush with life at the time). She gave birth to her two sons, Subahu and Mareecha, who were given great powers from being her sons. But they laid waste to the land around them, and their father joined in "delighted" at their actions. I think this could be revised, for it is listed as their pranks and rough housing. They pulled up trees and threw them about. But a great savant (saint) grew angry at the father for pulling up a tree and killed him. Thataka and her sons decided to attack the saint for revenge, but he cursed them all to be demons. The sons left this world to seek the company of other demons, but she stayed and withered the land with heat. It is said that she carries a trident, breathes fire, and has a snake for an arm band. She eats anything that moves within her desert. Afterwards, she arrives as if from nowhere, and Rama fights and kills her. I don't think I'll write about the fight, but just in case, he breaks her trident with an arrow, breaks some great rocks that she hurls with his arrows, and shoots an arrow in her throat.
I'm not sure if I want to actually have Thataka appear in my story yet. Unfortunately, most google images portray her as just a giant woman. I want to emphasize the part where, under the curse, "her features became forbidding." I want to portray her as terrifying and ugly: the snake armband made me think of a Gorgon from greek mythology. I will probably describe her something like this image, which (by fair use I must say) is Euryale from the God of War franchise.
No comments:
Post a Comment